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Series of blog posts focused on helping premed students improve their MCAT Verbal Score to a 10 or better. The blog posts explain the fundamentals of verbal reasoning; discuss how to increase cognitive functioning; what the MCAT Verbal section consists of, including the changes on the new MCAT; how to study for the MCAT Verbal section; and where to find the best MCAT Verbal study materials.

One of the biggest challenges that students have in the MCAT CARS Exam is answering questions. Getting a high MCAT Score in CARS, and getting high MCAT Scores in general are among the biggest challenges in medical school admissions.

In our last blog post we talked about how to approach questions in general and how to analyze Challenge Questions. Let’s now take a look at “Detail” Questions and Support Detail Questions in particular.

When you look at the MCAT score range in different sections of the test, it’s clear that the section that students have the most difficulty with is CARS. In 2015, a score of 125 was the mean, and a 125 isn’t a score that is going to inspire any admissions committee. Yet a score of just 2 points higher, a 127, puts a student in the top 20% of test takers, and a 128 will really set an applicant apart. In this blog post, we’ll look at how to raise your MCAT percentile in CARS as the final step in not just getting into medical school, but gaining multiple admissions.

Studying for the CARS Exam is no different than studying for an organic chemistry exam: you have to master the fundamentals. There are no ‘test taking techniques, tips or tricks’. Mastering the fundamentals or Rhetoric, Grammar, and Reflective Intelligence will give you the tools to succeed. Find out how.

Finding the Main Idea in a passage is critical since all of the other Key Ideas are related to it. The Main Idea is what holds a passage together. Finding it quickly is the key to “how to increase reading speed and comprehension”. But in order to find the Main Idea quickly, you need to understand where it is located in different types of essays. Find out how.

80% of the questions on the CARS Exam deal with the Main Idea, Key Ideas, and the relationships between them. The ability to be able to pick out Key Ideas quickly is critical to success. Here’s the first of two steps in learning how.

Learning Rhetorical Cues will allow you to pick out Key Sentences quickly and easily. Learn the types of words and word phrases here that authors use to signal that a sentence contains an important idea. Knowing these Rhetorical Cues will increase reading speed and comprehension.

The last decade has seen a revolution in neuroscience, particularly in our understanding of stress and how damaging it is to test taking performance. But knowing the cause also allows for the utilization of this very effective cure. Get it here.

One of the most challenging parts of the CARS Exam is combining Key Ideas and seeing what they ‘suggest or imply’. It’s never explicitly stated in the text. This involves clearly seeing the Relationship of Ideas using Reflective Intelligence, something that’s never taught in pre med programs. Learn how do do it here and make mastering the Relationship of Ideas a key part of your MCAT CARS strategy.

One of the biggest challenges that students have in the MCAT CARS Exam is answering questions. Getting a high MCAT Score in CARS, and getting high MCAT Scores in general are among the biggest challenges in medical school admissions.

Some of the CARS questions can be very difficult, and sometimes it seems that the examiners are trying to trick you. But there is a way to analyze questions to make sure that you really understand what they’re asking for and know where to find the right answer. It’s all based on linguistic analysis, and even though you haven’t been exposed to it, I can assure you that language analysis is an exact science and once you learn the rules, you’ll be able to answer questions correctly and consistently.

Today we’re going to be talking about first type of ‘Support’ questions, those dealing with key ideas in the passage. Later, we’ll be doing more videos on the other types of questions. But before we go into any specific type of question, let’s look at the general rules that govern all types of questions.